Resource Klaxon: SearchSystem

Here we feature SearchSystem, the latest addition to our Archives list. It does exactly what it says on the tin and is another fantastic resource available to anyone, for free. It is Julian Van Havere’s curated collection and can be easily searched using the index by selecting tags such as ‘graphics’, ‘guidelines’, etc.

It was brought to our attention via our subscription to David Airey’s Identity Designed newsletter, another useful tip for the design magpie.

Enjoy.

D&AD – New Blood Winners

Big, big congratulations to Olivia Kelly and Phil White who both won a wooden pencil at this year’s D&AD New Blood Awards!


 
 

Olivia and Phil


Olivia answered the OMO, Unilever Persil copywriting brief.

The problem set was to encourage a new generation to dream and dare, because you don’t achieve your dreams by playing it safe.

Olivia took the insight ‘6 out of 10 British adults are afraid of taking risks. With Persil wanting to bring their ‘Dirt is Good’ message to a new audience of young people who don’t have families, it is time for Persil to encourage their new audience to dream, even if it's only for a minute’ and flipped the proposition on its head and asked the audience to dare to dream instead.

This new angle led to the copy based solutions below.



Phil answered the Heineken brief. The problem set was to reposition Heineken as the catalyst for making a fresh connection. Phil’s response was inspired by the notion of Dutch Courage:

Fear has no cultural or geographical restraints. There are so many different phobias but the affects they have on us are the same emotionally and physically. Fear can inhibit us from achieving goals or strive to make a positive change.

Heineken Dutch Courage is a festival based event, where people are challenged to reinvent themselves and come face their fears head on. The goal is for people to meet, support, share and bond over their fears through a fresh and rewarding experience.

CONFERENCE WEEK 12

Here we feature nearly all of our Conference Week 12 speakers talks. To watch each talk simply click on the highlighted names below.

Nick Asbury & Greg Quinton talk smile in the mind

Nick Asbury talks about writing

Greg Quinton talks about the day job

Monika Fosberg talks about her working practice

Tom Farrell talks ideas

Andrew Griffin talks Illustration & Animation

Martin O’Neill talks all things collage

Dani Molneux talks all things Dotto

Maisy Sumer talks about her practice

Owen Hughes talk strategy

Andrew Ross talks about ideas in Graphics

Jo Moore talks about ideas in advertising

Jamie Supple talks about his process

Craig Oldham talks all things film

Jim Sutherland talks about the importance of play

Modern Illustration

Unsure how we originally came across this website, but Modern Illustration is an excellent archive we’ve been spending some time on.

Its content is specifically of print circa 1950-1975, and is the work of Zara Picken.

It is vast, brilliantly curated, and well worth a chunk of your time.

Modern Illustration


D&AD – New Blood Winner

Massive congratulations to Hasan Lokhat for his wooden pencil win at this year’s D&AD New Blood Awards.


Hasan answered the Top Trumps brief, and in his words:

Top Trumps are trying to tap into the 18-25 audience, to achieve this, I am pitching an idea that involves Top Trumps partnering with Spotify.

Spotify Wrapped is released in December every year. People share it on social media and brag about what they listen to. We are going to turn this into a Top Trumps competition. By using Spotify Wrapped’s data, each user will receive their own personal Top Trumps Card.

Spotify’s AI engine will pitch users against others daily.

Build your collection of TopTrump TopSpot cards and aim to win as many as you can. At the end of the game the player who holds the coveted TopSpot will win an exclusive, one of a kind deck of TopTrumps cards, consisting of the top most streamed artists on Spotify, personally signed by each Artist or Band.


PRESENTATION


RESEARCH

Packaging

The graphic design first years have finished their second semester packaging project.

A new take on the brief itself involved taking a closer look at the world of cereal packaging, and creatively design a box of cereal on behalf of a given client, event or audience.

The student could choose the most appropriate cereal (cold or hot) for their client. The solution could be achieved through three-dimensional design, surface graphics or a combination of both.


airbnb – Copos [translated from ‘flake’ in spanish’]


Queen’s platinum jubilee


Warburtons


sunday times


Warburton’s


airbnb


pet rodent owners


pride


winter olympic games


The sunday times


glastonbury festival

Open Day Faces – Take 2

Here we feature a second selection of typeface illustrations by prospective graphics students who recently joined us in our studio. Some interesting takes on what we bill as our “fun with with fonts” project. Hopefully everyone gained an insight into what we do and how the course works.

Minimum Means Maximum Effect

Here we feature some ground work examples for an up and coming Year 1 project . The one day studio workshop will be held in he Autumn term of academic year 2022/23.

The brief will involve giving each student one well known brand element and working in black and white only, on an A3 canvas, we will be asking the students to play and create as many images as they can using their given element.

They will be encouraged to use and explore a basic design palette of scale, reflection, multiples, proportion, space and layout to create as many interesting and intriguing images as they can in 4 to 5 hours.

A selection of well known brand elements

Open Day Faces – Take 1

Here we feature a selection of typeface illustrations by our prospective graphics students who joined us this weekend in our studios, where they gained an insight into what we do and how the course works.

Some impressive characters.

Resource Klaxon: Design Reviewed – Online Archive

A quick nota bene regarding the latest addition to our list of archives.

Design Reviewed, recently featured on Print’s weekly roundup by Steven Heller is the collection of Matt Lamont – a fellow northerner.

In Matt’s words:

Design Reviewed is a personal project dedicated to digitally preserving graphic design history and documenting the vast visual culture from the last century.

His collection features some absolute gems, but is also thoughtfully (and no doubt pain stakingly) edited into categories and themes. Any designer would be delighted to have a percentage of his collection to learn from!

Soak it up…

A snapshot of the collection